


Can't Leave the Door Ajar

by tryslora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: fullmoon_ficlet, Dreams, F/M, Speculation, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 19:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The door taunts him, and he doesn’t know who to believe: Scott, who’s been his brother forever, or Lydia, who he’s loved forever. One says stay, one says go. He doesn’t know what to do, so he sits there until his head is pounding and he starts to scream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Leave the Door Ajar

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for prompt #54 - crossover at fullmoon_ficlet. The mods mentioned the idea of crossing over, and I couldn't get this idea out of my head. It’s not happy. And I doubt it’s close to what canon’s doing, but it’s my way of verbalizing speculation after 3x15 (don’t read it if you don’t want to go there, ok?). This is based on a conglomeration of ideas I've seen on Tumblr; I can't take credit for the idea of the crash impacting season 3b. As always, I do not own the world or characters of Teen Wolf, but I do love to play with them.

“Don’t open the door, Stiles.”

He climbs out of bed, shrugging her hands off of his arm where she tries to grab on, hold him back. “I’m going to close it. I don’t like it being open.”

“You don’t know what’s on the other side.” Her voice is so reasonable, so _scared_.

He stands in front of it and glances back at her, one hand on the door knob. “It’s just a door, Lydia.”

She shakes her head solemnly. “No. It’s ajar.”

#

“What if something’s trying to get into my head?” Stiles leans on Deaton’s counter, long fingers fluidly tapping out a rhythm that has gotten under his skin, a slow slide and pop that seems to echo something in the recesses of his mind. “What if something wants to take me over?”

“That is a possibility.” Deaton never stops what he’s doing, organizing things, putting things on shelves. His back is to Stiles, and it bothers Stiles that he can’t see his face. “You woke the Nemeton, Stiles. You created the beacon that Beacon Hills is named for.”

“Then I need to figure out how to close the door.”

When Deaton turns, his eyes are a blank white. Stiles takes a step backwards, even as Deaton murmurs, “You do that, Stiles.”

#

Stiles rubs the heel of his hand against his eye sockets, frustrated and aching from trying to read his textbook. “It’s like everything’s a dream,” he mutters. “You. Me. Kira. Lydia.” He laughs sharply. “That’s why she’s being so nice to me, right? Because I’m imagining it. Like I dreamed you up a new sparkling girlfriend, and Isaac’s being a dick, and… fuck, I can’t deal with it.”

“Maybe something isn’t coming into your head,” Scott muses. “Maybe something already pushed you out. Maybe that’s why you keep seeing the door, because it’s the only way back to who you’re supposed to be. Like, it’s your only way back to reality.”

The funny thing is, it makes sense, as much as anything can these days.

#

Stiles wakes up for the fifth time in the middle of the night, each time certain that it’s _real_ and each time realizing that it’s _not_.

The door taunts him, and he doesn’t know who to believe: Scott, who’s been his brother forever, or Lydia, who he’s loved forever. One says stay, one says go.

He doesn’t know what to do, so he sits there until his head is pounding and he starts to scream.

#

Lydia’s mouth tastes like strawberry lip-gloss, and Stiles could drown in the sweetness of it. She steals his breath away with a kiss, and his hand comes up to caress her cheek, to tangle in her hair, and for that moment he is sure—absolutely _positive_ —that this is real.

“Wake up,” she whispers against his mouth, and he wants to cry at her words.

“The door,” he whispers back.

She draws back and her eyes are so serious as she looks at him, her mouth kiss-bruised and swollen. He will never forget her like this, never forget the way she tilts her head, brushes her thumb across his lips.

“You can’t go through the door, Stiles,” she tells him softly. “But I can. Only if you promise me that you’ll wake up.”

He nods once and she pulls him down, brushing a kiss against his forehead.

The world tilts and suddenly she is standing before the door, one hand on the knob. She twists it, and he _knows_ in that moment that he can’t let her step through. He can’t lose her this way.

He screams, throwing himself at her, but the door is closed and she is gone, and all he can do is scream.

#

He wakes to the smell of a hospital and the beeps of machinery in a gentle rhythm that sings through his fingertips. The scream scrapes his throat raw as he thrashes until the nurses hold him down, until something is slipped into his IV and he drowns in the darkness that swallows him whole.

#

Scott is there when he wakes again, curled up at his side, cradling his hand. The sheriff sleeps in a chair across the room, and they both stir as soon as Stiles moves.

“Careful, dude, it’s been a while.” Scott places one hand on Stiles’s chest, holding him still.

“I don’t—”

“You crashed the Jeep.” His dad’s voice is low and serious. “We thought we were going to lose you.”

“Where’s Lydia?” He has to ask. He has to know what’s real and what’s not. He has to know what to believe.

They exchange a look, and Stiles’s heart sinks. He _knows_ before they speak.

“She collapsed last night,” Scott says quietly. “Right before you woke up the first time.”

“She went through the door.” Stiles can’t breathe, can’t let it go, not knowing what she’s done. “She went through the door so I’d go back.” He hiccups, gulps, tries desperately to find some air in a room that is closing in on him. There is nothing but vacuum and he is dead, he has to be dead, because this is hell knowing what he knows.

“Dude, you’re not making sense.”

Stiles closes his eyes, falls back against the pillow. It doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. He knows the truth. He knows what happened.

Thanks to Lydia, the door is closed.


End file.
